Preserving a Decade of Analytics History for Bolton Abbey's GA4 Transition

01// The broken state

Bolton Abbey, a heritage destination in the Yorkshire Dales, needed to preserve its Universal Analytics history before the transition to Google Analytics 4. The requirement was a complete backup of all key metrics and dimensions spanning 2015 to 2023, so that historical insights would remain available for ongoing analysis once Universal Analytics was retired.

02// What we changed

1. aBacked up the client's full Universal Analytics dataset (2015-2023, 14.3MB) covering audience, acquisition, behavior, conversion, technology, and location reports
2. bCaptured the complete set of metrics and dimensions, including users, sessions, traffic source/medium, campaign and UTM data, top pages, site search, events, goals, device category, and geography
3. cOrganized the preserved data into a Looker Studio report structured around three sections: Audience, Behavior, and Acquisition
4. dBuilt flexible date-range selection, scorecard summaries of key metrics, pie charts for category breakdowns such as device type, and filters by dimensions like channel group, source, medium, referrer, and campaign
5. eDesigned the report to be easily updated or modified to meet changing needs in the future

03// The outcome

Universal Analytics history from 2015 to 2023 was backed up before the GA4 transition and rebuilt into a Looker Studio report. Audience, behavior, and acquisition metrics stay accessible with flexible date ranges and channel filters, so no historical data was lost.